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#251/ June 6, 2021
TRUMP THREATENS ZUCK: "NO SOUP FOR YOU!"
This week, Facebook ceo Mark Zuckerberg banned former President Donald Trump for two more years from his charming platform. His rationale was that Trump's praise for the imbeciles who killed five people and injured over 100 federal police officers at the Capitol in January was inconsistent with Facebook's speech standards -- of which there are none, and which they make up as they go along.
The ex-prez wasn't impressed. He punched back hard. According to HuffPost Trump warned Zuck that "Our Country can’t take this abuse anymore!” and told him that once he's President again (which he thinks will happen any day now, or when he's released from jail for tax evasion,) "there will be no more dinners...with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife.” Take that, twerp!
But there's a silver lining for the Z-Man. We usually barbecue burgers on Sunday here at Ad Contrarian Global Headquarters. If you can't make it to the White House, c'mon over (bring beer.)
But wait, there's more.
Writing in the NY Times this week, Kara Swisher had this to say about the Trump-Zuckerbag relationship. "Mr. Zuckerberg has been played for a chump by Mr. Trump..."
Talking about the many conversations she's had with the Z-man about how Facebook was being used for bad purposes by bad people, she wrote, "Even now, I have a hard time describing the blank stare on his typically blank face. It was as if I was talking in another language to another species on another planet." Waddaya mean "as if?"
And for a broader look at the context in which the Zuckerberg-Trump shit fight exists, it's hard to beat this from Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal, "The internet is a great thing with great virtues, but it is helping break up America. This is a problem that can’t be solved, only managed. Good people should be thinking about how to do that."
A good start would be to end tracking. Have I mentioned that before?
Correction:
Speaking of ending tracking...believe it or not, even blogweasels can make mistakes. Last week I wrote: “Right now the GPC (General Privacy Control) allows us to send such a signal (telling companies not to track) but does not require companies to honor it.” This is wrong. California does require companies to comply with GPC requests.
There will be a lot more about GPC to come. Stay tuned. H/T Jason Kint
Just How Screwed Up Is Online Media?
For about ten years the advertising and marketing industry has been obsessed with media. And just like everything else the industry becomes obsessed with, they've fucked it up beyond recognition.
Here's a lovely example. The ANA (Association of National Advertisers) did a survey recently of media executives. Before we get to the results, here's an explanation for civilians: A KPI is a "Key Performance Indicator." In other words, it's an indicator that marketers use to evaluate how well their media dollars are performing for them. In this survey the ANA identified 39 potential KPIs and asked media execs to rank them on certain criteria.
Two of the most critical criteria were,
- What KPIs are most important to you?
- What KPIs are you using?
You would think that in any sane universe the KPIs that are most important to them would be the ones they're using, right? But in a sane universe these people would be driving for Uber. In fact, if you look at the top 5 KPIs, there is almost no correlation between the ones these geniuses think are the most important and the ones they actually use.
- The KPI they use most is "Cost Per Thousand." They rate it as the 22nd most important
- The KPI they use second most is "Cost Per Click." They rate it as the 27th most important
No, you can't make this shit up.
And While We're Kicking the Online Media Industry Around...
There's this in Forbes this week from ad fraud researcher Dr. Augustine Fou. He says that about 2/3 of online ads in the US are being shown to bots, not humans.
Do Not Try This At Home
It was a tough week for the Trumpster. First he got sand kicked in his face by a little dipshit like Zuckerberg, then he had to shut down his pathetic blog after 29 days for lack of viewers.
According to The New York Times..."....Mr. Trump had become frustrated after hearing from friends that the site was getting little traffic and making him look small and irrelevant."
There's a lesson for you here, boys and girls. A crappy presidency can last four years. But a crappy blog can't last a month.
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